Street Level: Reconsidering Urban Sociology’s Regional Bias with Observations from Metro Atlanta’s Rockdale County

• In Event: 095 - Section on Community and Urban Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Conceptualizing Spatial Units

Abstract

In this article I use ethnographic data from an ongoing community study to critically assess urban sociology’s image of “the street” and to illustrate how it has resulted from a regional bias that privileges Northern cities as supposedly representative of American cities in general. I trace the origins of this regional bias to classic ethnographies of Northern cities conducted in the Chicago School tradition and explain how Southern cities were deemed unworthy of study for so long. Here I also discuss contemporary arguments about regionalism and recent ethnographic work in Southern locales—both of which hold promise for urban sociology’s future. Next, I examine canonical conceptions of the street to illustrate how particular features of Northern cities are used to represent urbanity itself, even as they obscure from view the simple fact that not all urban landscapes are the same. Finally, I argue that the distinctiveness of Southern cities is key to understanding the diversity of urban experiences in America and the importance of regionalism in explaining that diversity. I use empirical examples from the streets of Metro Atlanta’s Rockdale County to demonstrate how the ethnographic study of Southern cities has great potential for developing a more varied and geographically representative urban studies literature in sociology.

Author

• Betsie Garner, University of Pennsylvania